NBRC: Tower Teams Read 2013, Round II discussion
Cadet Blue
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Captain's Chat
Okay, Mary, I've started gathering up the important resources we need to post here and in the main group (links, spreadsheet info, capt duties, etc) and will work on getting that all squared away for the next little while.Okay, let's talk duties!
I volunteer to keep up with the spreadsheet, which will include information for status updates so I could cover those two:
*spreadsheet
*posting weekly status updates/reminders
Thoughts on the remaining duties? Is there anything in particular you want to handle yourself or shall I just figure out how to share the duties between us? I don't know what your personal schedule is like so I don't want to go telling you to do something you may not have much time to commit to every week or something. Let me know what you think!
◈ Duration: May 1st PDT 8:00 AM (BST 4PM) to May 11th PDT 8:00 AM (BST 4 PM)*start time in all time zones: click_here
*countdown: click_here
◈ Participants commit to a “read-as-much-as-you-can event.”
◈ Team’s Page Goal: Each participant sets a page goal – the total sum of goals from each team member will be the Team's Page Goal.
For example:
Participants for team Cadet Blue
Mary (J) - 800 pages
Sonia - 1000 pages
ilovebakedgoods (Teresa) - 600 pages
800+1000+600 = 2400
The Goal for Team Cadet Blue will be 2400 pages
◈ Points for:
*1 point per member reaching goal
*20 points if 50% of the team members reach page goal
*30 points if team goal is reached
*50 points if all the team members reach page goal
◈ Each team should choose a theme for the read-a-thon and read at least one book representing that theme.
*1 point per book read
*30 points if 50% of team members read a book representing the theme
*50 points if all the team members read a book representing the theme
◈ Each of them should read a book with a cover representing the color of the team.
*1 point per book read
*30 points if 50% of team members read a book with the team color
*50 points if all the team members read a book with the team color
◈ An extra 5 points if all the team members participate in the read-a-thon.
◈ Keep us updated on your progress! Every few hours (as long as it doesn't interfere with your reading), post a status update on how the reading is going. You might want to set up a “rally” of who will track which hours.
◈ Mini-Challenges & Games - As done on the previous read-a-thons we'll come out with some fun stuff to shoot the breeze. An extra 5 points can be earned by suggesting a mini-challenge & game
◈ At the end of the Read-a-Thon event post your final results on the thread, as well as the books read during that time.
◈ The winner of the Read-a-Thon will be the team with more points achieved and will receive a 4 book advantage on the team's total
Repurposed to post some Read-A-Thon info: Link to Read-A-thon page with pics: Read-a-thon_FAGs_&_how_tos
~Rules, FAQ’s & How To’s~
◈ Book Advantage
Once a month the mods will set a inter-team challenge with a book advantage prize. This number will count for all purposes as a book read and will be added to the team’s total.
Example of book advantage:
◈ Team’s Page Goal
How to check the number of pages read
On the profile page choose stats
Then select the radio button pages
The only way to keep count is to check the number of pages before the start of the Read-a-Thon week and at the end. The difference will be the total of pages read
Participants should avoid tagging any books the 2 hours prior the start of the read-a-thon and the 2 hours after the end of the read-a-thon.
Be realistic.If you are only capable of reading one/two books a week, unless we're talking about Les Miserables or The Game of Thrones, don't set a 1000 pages goal. On the other hand, if you are a speed reader a 500 pages goal seems rather low.
Only pages from books marked as read count.
◈ Mini-Challenges & Games
*Only one Mini-Challenge & Game allowed per team so give us your best shot
*Team's Mini-Challenge & Game suggestion must be posted by one of the Team Captains/Co-Captains till the beginning of the Read-a-Thon May 1st PDT 8:00 AM (BST 4PM). After that it will not be rewarded with the 5 points even if the mods decided to use it during the event
*When creating a Mini-Challenge & Game:
- It has to be fun and quick. We want to take a break of reading BUT we don't want to keep people from reading
- No aditional reading implied.
*Acceptable Ideas:
Mini-Challenge #1: Over the Rainbow (*This is choose-a-book only, no reading included)
Build a rainbow with book covers.
Optional: build a rainbow with book covers from your actual bookshelf, then take a picture and post it on the thread.
Mini-Challenge #2: Leave your Mark
What do you use for bookmarks (whether you use them at all). Take a picture of your bookmarks (or what you use) and post them.
*What NOT to Do:
Mini-Challenge #3: What An Animal Book?
Read a book that:
- Has an animal in the title of the book.
- Has an animal on the cover of the book.
- An animal plays a major role in the book.
- A main character is (or turns into) an animal.
◈ Participation
You can choose to participate and/or changing your goal anytime. However, we have points and prizes involved so to be fair the time limit to joining or change goal is May 8th PDT 8:00 AM (BST 4 PM).
No changes allowed passing the time limit.
I love fun challenges and the motivational fun games sound great! I really wanted to find pics of hot guys in uniform for our team, lol, so of course I'm all over that idea, hahaha! We can use this thread to come up with more fun ideas, too. If you want to start a challenge of any sort, go for it. I'm going to play a game with my son before he has to go to bed. I'll work on that spreadsheet after he's in bed. Drats, I should have reserved a few spaces in this thread for game ideas and such, so they'd be at the top for easy access. Maybe I'll just use the first one as a catch-all for ideas we come up with.
I was thinking of a challenge involving the color blue (of course), maybe a cover with blue on it and/or uniforms, too. Anyway, feel free to post something to get us started! I'll be back later to let you know what duties I shall assign to you, hehe! This will be fun!
I'll reserve a couple for me to set up some ideas I have so they're right on the first page. I like the blue themed/uniforms challenge ideas.
CHALLENGE/GAME IDEAS
Blue (covers, names etc..,)
Uniforms (on cover, military characters)
Mother's Day
Spring
Summer
Vacations
Short books
Series related (1st in a series, finish a series?)
4th of July
Cinco de Mayo
Memorial Day
Flag Day
Father's Day
Since April is half over, how about a short book challenge for the last 2 weeks? Maybe 3 points for books 170-200 pgs, 2 for 201-275 and 1 for 275-350? Or something like that? Points being just for fun and bragging rights.
Sounds good, Mary! I think I'm going to assign you to be the one who writes up challenges, hehe. I'll probably just add some challenge ideas in here but I'll let you go ahead and post them with their details and stuff, okay? We can always ask for input from members if you're unsure of which challenge to post when or if you want to fine tune ideas or whatever, as well.
Sure thing. I'm going to be now. I'll see if I can figure out how to get pics to show tomorrow. I wish we could just copy and paste like other sites I do. So much easier than all this html crap.
I found these instructions to be really easy to grasp: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...Worked for my pic of Officer Hottie (aka Channing Tatum) in our group thread. I hate having to save pics to a photobucket or whatever account, so linking to the image source like that works for me.
Mary, I went ahead and set up a Mini Challenges folder here in THIS group, as a place to keep our challenge information orderly and handy (totally forgot we could just create a thread dedicated to that, haha). I reserved a few spots for who knows what but if I don't need them I'll just delete them or if you want to send me challenge information to paste into those, I can do that. Feel free to reserve a few for yourself, too.We can continue using *this* thread as a place to come up with ideas for challenges, but keep the other for specific challenges we actually do.
Ok no problem. I'll check out those directions tonight. I can come on at work but I can't really search for pictures and move them stuff like that.I'll put up a short book challenge like I mentioned before for the last half of April.
Practicing my picture posting: 
Yay I figured it out!
Yay! And what a nice way to show your abilities, hehe.
Mary, I updated post #1 with our duties. Check it out and let me know if it sounds good to you! If you want to opt out of any of the shared duties, let me know. Does the "challenges" duty description sound good?
Sounds good to me. I can be kind of oblivious sometimes so if I'm not doing something you think I should be doing, let me know. I don't think we'll have a problem with absentee players unless we start getting non-mod team members. I hope we do because we won't have a shot at winning if the other teams all get bigger and we don't.
Yeah, I'm hoping we get more players. We have the lowest goal of any teams. I'm guessing the mods must have a plan so I'll just wait and see how things go.
I like your May ideas but I wonder if somewhere in there we should throw in either a cover color or maybe an ABC challenge of some sort to make some of the challenges a little less specific.Maybe one week could be M-A-Y: Read a book with a title that has words that start with M or A or Y or read a book with an author whose first or last initials are M or A or Y.
Read a book with a green cover in honor of May's birthstone, the emerald.
Good ideas. I was kind of just using the format that the person who put the mini-challenges up for my round 1 team used.
I added a note to add to the challenge that books with green covers are worth 2 pts in May. Also a note to do something with spelling the month.
I didn't have on there but had planned to make it so that any of the May themes were worth pts all month. Just more pts on their assigned week.
I still don't know what the "reward" should be for the one who wins the monthly challenges. Maybe they get to pick a word for the next month or oddball character name or something. Then a book with that character or that word in the title or something is worth 2 pts. I'll troll the other threads to see what their doing for mini-challenges.
Sounds good, Mary! Yeah, I've been meaning to troll the other groups to see what ideas they've come up with so I could help you out with ideas but I haven't had time.
Looks like the upcoming Read-a-thon will incorporate a couple of mini challenges (the book color and the theme) that we've discussed here so we should put any other mini challenges on hold until the RaT is over.Very excited about the RaT! We need to come up with a theme, which of course we can hash out in the main group thread. Will don thinking cap but won't post any suggestions for that just yet. Still have time!
Mod
Three cheers for Sonia!
Been planning things in my head and now I'm about to play some games with my son, so I'm putting down some scattered 'things to do' here.Notes to self:
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Mod
Hooray!And now you are no longer just talking to yourself! lol
Yay new members!ETA: Ok posted the read-a-thon info up above.
I'd help you update the spreadsheet but I don't know how. Is it set up so that I can update it too or just you?
I think it's set up so only I can. I think the only option was me or "anyone with access" and I'd just rather play it safe and not open it up to just anyone. It won't take me much time, especially since we haven't had a bunch of books read yet. I just know I need to do it and didn't want to forget in the midst of my scatter-brainedness this morning.You want to go to work for me, though? LOL! I really don't want to go but I am off tomorrow so it's fine. I just feel sleepy now and would rather stay home and veg out, hehe.
Spreadsheet is updated and we are up to 11 books, woot!
Mary - I am trying to figure out how to set up the RaT stuff for us (how/where people send ideas and how we'll keep track of participants, etc). I've held off on asking the team for their input on theme ideas and the mini-challenge ideas because I want to figure out how to keep everything for the RaT organized, plus I know a few of our members are still busy with real life stuff and wanted to let a little bit of time go by so that any RaT talk doesn't just end up buried in everyday business in our main group.We have the mini challenges thread in this group so we could keep most of our stuff there (just you and I should be posting in that thread, though, to keep things clean and orderly). I've got some ideas on organizing it but I won't be able to work them out until later tonight or tomorrow.
Any thoughts? I was wondering, do you want people to send you a PM with all of their details if they participate (goals, etc)? Or just have it all posted in the main group and then you transfer the specifics to the challenge thread for organizing? Should we all just post theme and mini challenge suggestions to the main group or do you want them all sent to you in a PM? (You're in charge, miss challenge captain, hehe!)
Just wanted to let you know where my head was at with that, since I've got it on my checklist up there!
Sorry I can't go to work for you. My teenage daughter has a boy over and I am not leaving them alone. The last one tried to grope her on the couch when I was here!I'm a little confused on the Read-A-Thon mini-challenges. We don't read for those right? We just pick one and then all do it? Like posting pics of bookmarks or something? If that's what it is maybe we could all take pictures of our favorite seat to read in?
The color thing seems pretty easy. I know we were going to use Green for our own May mini-challenge. But reading 1 book with a blue cover shouldn't be hard for people. I'm sorry I deleted all my Fantasyland Game color shelves. But I know I had a lot of blue ones. So no biggy.
I don't mind being in charge of the Read-A-Thon for our team. I'm sure I can figure out how to keep track of the stats. I haven't really read that part of the Read-A-thon info but it can't be that hard. I was also thinking that maybe we should start a thread just for the Read-A-Thon.
Mod
Good idea!
Yikes @ the groping teenager! I don't blame you for staying home, haha! Work was very un-busy so it was a really good night.Yes, for the mini challenges in the RaT, we do fun little things like what you named. I love the pictures of reading spots suggestion!
And yes, a new thread for the RaT is a great idea.
Mod
as "read" by the Mod Account.
Okay, thanks!I just updated our team view books thingy.
I need to add a note to the team spreadsheet or something for people who have tagged books under 160 pages so I won't forget to keep them out of the count. Or do I ask them to untag them with the tag for the team? Some people are using a generic "2013" type of shelf so I feel weird asking them to untag them so I guess I'll just try to remember to ignore those when doing the count each week.
Okay, still have a discrepancy with Lindy's shelves/tags/books. Her shelf for the team on her profile says 32 books, while her team page thing says 36 books. I've looked over her "currently reading" and "abandoned" shelves and I see four books that have been star-reviewed so I'm wondering if they just have the wrong tags on them. I've already emailed her once about the discrepancies but I haven't heard from her. I guess I'll email her again and ask about the 4 specific titles and see if she'll respond.
Mod
Please send me a PM so I'll know who they are and I can decrease total. I would do it myself, but I don't want to delay the Sunday Update. We are just about to post.
As far as Lindy, did you try communicating with her at the other eMail address? I don't have it at the tips of my fingers; I can't remember if it is under this account or my regular.
Mod
As of today, I see 33 on her shelf NOT 37.
Okay, I'll PM you with that info! I'll email/PM the people with books under 160 pages.I emailed Lindy at the one email address that I was given here and then I also emailed her at one that she had written to me from. That email was bounced back, though.
Oh, i sent the PM to the mods acct!
Teresa's Duties:
*keeping a Google Spreadsheet that all members can view
*communicating with all Team Members
*posting weekly status updates/reminders
*refreshing book counts as often as she can (aim for every night)
*posting a copy of the Team Summary each week, from Team Summary Spreadsheet into the main team thread
*motivating, encouraging, cheering on other members of team
Mary's Duties:
*post little challenges within challenges, which includes:
-setting up challenge threads
-contacting members for all challenge info, when needed
-posting reminders when challenges begin and when they are about to end
-tally points for challenge participants, determine winner of challenges, announce winner in threads (not all challenges will necessarily earn points and points are strictly for fun, no pressure)
Shared Captain Duties:
- communicating with a NBRC Moderator
- making sure Team Members are staying active
- notifying the NBRC Mod if someone drops out
- have effective and kind (this is a game, remember) on-line communication skills to help members having trouble
- making sure Team Members belong on your team
- dealing with minor issues that arise